


Indebted

by thedevilchicken



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death Fix, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends to Lovers, Injury Recovery, M/M, Mind Control, Pining, Serious Injuries, Sharing a Body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 17:24:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21256937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: When Brasidas dies at Amphipolis, Alexios asks the gods for help. Brasidas returns, and Alexios has a debt to pay.





	Indebted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wednesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesday/gifts).

He thinks he might have made a mistake. 

Brasidas keeps looking at him over the table, giving him brief but regular glances though they're not really talking now and they haven't done for months. Myrrine invited Brasidas to dinner tonight while Nikolaos and Kassandra are away from home, probably because Stentor is between deployments and neither of them has worked out how to talk to him without starting an argument. Maybe they'll get there one day, but it's not likely to be soon. 

She probably invited Brasidas to act as a buffer between them because she knows Stentor respects him, and Brasidas probably said yes because he respects Myrrine. Maybe also because Kassandra is away on the Adrestia with their father and Barnabas and Herodotos, trying to unlearn at least a little of what the Cult taught her, or at least that might have factored into his decision. She and Brasidas might cope better with each other's company these days, but Alexios thinks one of the fucked up siblings is more than enough for him to deal with for one night. 

After all, Kassandra tried to kill him. Twice. And Alexios... well, Alexios has somehow managed to do something worse, even if that was by trying to do something better. 

But the mistake he's really made is being here tonight.

\---

Brasidas surviving Amphipolis wasn't an easy thing, nor was it particularly simple. Mostly because he didn't survive it at all. 

Brasidas died that day. Alexios reached him across the battlefield too fucking late to stop it, and he saw Kassandra push the spear in. He saw Brasidas fall down. And he was dead, he was very obviously dead because no one could have survived that. But once Kleon had fled and Kassandra disappeared, Alexios knelt in the dirt by his side even though he was gone more finally than either of them. Going after them could wait.

He'd never been sure if he believed in the gods; he knows now, but that day after the battle at Amphipolis, he was still undecided. He'd always thought it didn't really matter anyway because whether they existed or not, he'd never really felt their influence, and he'd never asked them for anything before - the way he saw it, there was nothing he wanted that he couldn't get out of life for himself. But, on his knees in Brasidas' blood, he asked for help. He asked that any god who could hear him, any god that might be there, come down and bring Brasidas back. He didn't care who it was. He didn't care what it took, or what it cost him. There was a yawning wound in Brasidas' throat, he was bloody and limp, and he'd have torn out his own beating heart if he'd thought that might help.

He didn't expect a reply, and if he had, he would've expected someone else. He could have made a deal with Ares or Athena, he thought, and go win battles in their name. After everything that had happened with Daphnae, he thought he could have made a deal with Artemis because in a way he already had. He could have dedicated his life to Poseidon and spent his days on the sea, or given his life to Hades in exchange for what Brasidas lost, and gone down to be in Tartarus. 

"You're not exactly Orpheus," a voice said, behind him, and Alexios turned. The voice's owner looked a lot like Alkibiades had the first time that they'd met: mostly naked, and at least partially drunk.

"Dionysos?" Alexios said. 

The man scoffed. He swayed a little. "Hardly," he said, and the air shimmered around him. In it, Alexios could see a pair of wings as tall as the man himself. It wasn't quite what he'd envisioned, but he understood. 

"_Maláka_," Alexios swore, under his breath. "I mean, no disrespect, but he needs his head stitched back together, not an erection the size of Krete." 

Eros sighed dramatically. "You asked for a god and you got a god. You didn't seem fussy at the time. What more did you want?"

"A god that could help me?"

Eros crossed his arms over his bare chest. "I can help you. I'm very capable of helping you."

"With this?"

"Of course." Eros looked at Brasidas. He frowned. "Well, it won't be perfect. I'm not Asclepios. I'm not even Hygeia." 

"Are either of them here?"

"No."

"Are they anywhere nearby?"

"No."

"Then you'll have to do." 

Eros knelt. He set his palms flat on Brasidas' chest, on his breastplate. "Are you sure?" he asked. "It'll cost you, you know. One day I'll ask you to do something for me, and you'll have to do it."

Alexios looked at the lifeless body on the ground in front of him. He looked at the blood on his hands, and in the dirt, and Brasidas' spear. He nodded grimly. "I'm sure," he said. He met Eros' gaze steadily. "And I always pay my debts."

Eros closed his eyes. The air around him shimmered as he spread his not-quite-visible wings out wide. And Alexios really couldn't say what else he did, but he knows exactly what the results of it were: he watched the gaping spear wound in Brasidas' throat knit itself neatly back together, though Eros was right about imperfections. He watched the way a scar formed there, relatively thin but red and angry. Then Brasidas moved. He took a breath. There was blood on his teeth, there was blood _everywhere_, but he was alive.

"Thank you," Alexios told Eros. 

"You owe me," Eros replied. And, as Brasidas opened his eyes, Eros vanished. Alexios barely noticed, though; he was watching Brasidas. 

He was alive, and very little else about the situation seemed to matter. Not even the price Alexios knew he'd have to pay someday. 

\---

"I think it's time for me to find my way home," Brasidas says, and once he's polished off his cup of wine, he stands up from the table. He thanks Myrrine. He and Stentor clasp each other by the forearm in something like good night. Then he says, "Alexios, will you walk with me?"

In the moment, he can't think of a single plausible reason to say no to that. Not one that he can say out loud, at least, because _can you imagine the carnage if I leave these two together?_ or even just plain _I don't want to be alone with you_ would sound completely terrible. Once upon a time, he'd've said, _big, strong Spartan man like you needs a misthios to escort him home?_ but he'd've smiled and gone with him anyway. Brasidas would've said something about payment in return for saving him from wolves and brigands on the way that would've sounded like flirtation if he'd been literally anybody else. Now Alexios Just rises and follows him out the door. Neither of them wait for him to give an answer.

Outside, it's a cool night but it's far from actually cold. The seasons are changing again, leaves falling from trees, and that means it's been about three years since the battlefield at Amphipolis, where he left him with his men. There'd been other cultists left, Kleon among them, and he remembers how it felt to put an end to him for everything he'd done. He remembers finding Aspasia, and then going home to Sparta. Going _home_ to Sparta. Finally.

Brasidas was there when he got back, very much alive but not exactly well; he'd lost so much blood that he'd been weak as a kitten for months, barely conscious, and at that point his voice was still a painful-sounding rasp. Brasidas' sister and her husband had been taking care of him, with frequent visits from what seemed like half of Lakonia, and he looked up from the centre of a group of well-wishers when Alexios finally ducked into his room. He was leaning back against the head of the bed with a sheet pulled up over his lap and looking completely exhausted, but he smiled brightly when he noticed Alexios creep in and lean against the back wall. And a few minutes later, when he asked everyone to leave, he caught Alexios' eye and asked him to stay. 

"I want to thank you," Brasidas said, once the room was empty, as Alexios sat down on the side of the bed. 

"What for?"

"For whatever you did. At Amphipolis." 

"What do you think that was?"

"Honestly? I don't know." Brasidas sighed. He tugged absently on his own braid; his beard was still growing back - he'd had to shave it to care for his not-quite-healed wound, his sister said - but his braid was still very much intact. "But I was dead. You must have done something." 

Alexios shrugged. He was pretty sure the smile he put on was convincing, or at least halfway to it. "I think I'd remember if I brought you back from Hades," he said. "You know I don't play the lyre. And you really don't want to hear me sing." 

The look on Brasidas' face was skeptical if amused, but something about it must have been convincing, even if it was just the fact of how many men Brasidas had seen die over the years without them coming back from it. It wasn't as if he was perfectly healed, either - surely if the gods had been involved, there wouldn't have been scars. 

He didn't bring it up again. They haven't talked about it since. Until that night.

\---

It took more than a year for Brasidas to recover and even then, he still had scars. Even now, he still has scars. Alexios has seen them all. 

He helped him through it. He expected it to be awkward but it wasn't really, at least not after the first few days - in the beginning, Brasidas half-heartedly told him he didn't need to help him, there were physicians and helots enough for that, but Alexios insisted, maybe because he felt some small sense of guilt, but mostly because he wanted to be useful. He'd made more money than he could spend in ten lifetimes, after all, and didn't need to head back out for work, and honestly, it was nice to be in one place for a while, and to spend some time with both his family and with Brasidas.

Brasidas' sister seemed pleased for the assistance, too, and Alexios arrived every morning to help him wash and dress. He remembers trying to be detached at first, like he thought Hippokrates would have been, professional and straightforward, but that didn't fit; soon enough, he was joking about it, smiling, and Brasidas, who'd seemed uncomfortable but grateful at first, laughed with him even though it hurt. Then he helped him out to the kitchen table and they told stories over breakfast. When he felt tired again, he helped him back to bed. 

Weeks passed like that. Brasidas' health improved slowly, until Alexios was doing less and less for him, but he still stopped by the house each morning. As the weeks passed, they started walking together, just short distances at first because Brasidas tired so easily, but then more and more. Sometimes they took food with them and ate sitting back against a tree trunk in a field or by a stream, talking about places they'd been and things they'd done, or in companionable silence. Alexios didn't mind the silence when they were shoulder to shoulder together. It was easy. Peaceful. He had almost everything he could possibly want.

Months passed like that. They went riding together sometimes, the first few with Brasidas settled behind him on Phobos' back and then, as he grew stronger, both on their own horse. Alexios missed the warmth of Brasidas' thighs pressed to his, his hands resting at his waist, his chest to his back as he leaned in to speak as they rode. He missed joking with him about it as he ran a damp cloth between his thighs. He missed helping him dress, helping him to the table, helping him up onto his horse... And when Brasidas started attending meetings again, getting involved in public life again, Alexios remembers how much he resented that, even as he was pleased for him. He'd prayed for this, after all, on his knees on a battlefield. He was glad.

He remembers spending more and more time outside the city after that. People needed a misthios just as much in Lakonia as they did anywhere else and he didn't have trouble finding work to keep himself occupied - he killed wolves and killed bandits and delivered packages of varying values and sometimes stayed away for days at a time to accomplish his task. Brasidas was always pleased to see him when he returned, Alexios believed that, but he was busy with the ephors or the kings or the commanders, or entertaining visiting dignitaries. But when they were together, walking together, eating together, avoiding Kassandra together, it was almost just like it had been before. Almost. _Almost_. But the pang of regret he felt wasn't for saving him, it was for the fact that what he would have liked to have was something that he couldn't. Anywhere else in the Greek world, Alexios would have kissed him and to hell with propriety. But Spartan men didn't fuck Spartan men, especially not on Spartan soil. Spartans had their own rules. He knew that. 

Years passed like that. Until, one night, Alexios found himself alone in the family home, sharpening his blades at the table. The air shimmered and then Eros stepped in through it like a door. He was just as nearly-naked as the first time that they'd met, which didn't come as a surprise. 

"So, have you come to collect?" Alexios asked. 

Eros sat himself down at the table beside him. "I think it's about time," he said. "It's been nearly three years. Don't you think I've been patient? I've been terribly patient."

"What do you want?"

"Nothing you can't afford to give me."

"You're not telling me much."

"I suppose I'm not."

"So what do you want?"

"Why don't you use your imagination?"

"Drachmae?"

"You know, that's not very imaginative."

"A job you want me to do?"

Eros smiled. "Closer. But not quite there."

"Then what?"

Eros looked him up and down. Slowly. Obviously. "Isn't it obvious?" he said. "I want your body."

Alexios' brows rose. "You want _sex_?"

Eros shook his head sadly. He tutted. "Not everything in this world is about sex, Alexios," he said. "I want your body. Literally. I'm going to wear it for a few hours, see what it's like to be human." He eyed Alexios, scrunching up his face. "Demi-human, at least. You're the only ones it ever seems to work with and there's a surprising lack of you about these days. Just a few hours. Then I'll give it back." 

"And what happens to me in the meantime?"

"You mean do you get to be a god?" He tutted again. "Even I can't do that. You'll be right where you are now, I'll just have the reins."

"And if I say no?"

"Well, you can't, can you. You already said yes." He leaned closer. He narrowed his eyes. "Unless you particularly want me to take it back...?"

Alexios felt a jolt of something hot and dark and extremely unpleasant lurch inside him, accompanied by an unwelcome image of Brasidas lying dead in the dirt outside Amphipolis. He had no desire to see that again, and surely it couldn't be that bad, he thought - all Eros wanted was to be him for a few hours. It wasn't like he was going to start a war or strip off his clothes and and run naked through the streets of Sparta, though the latter seemed more likely than the former. And honestly, public indecency would've been a small price to pay for Brasidas' life. 

"Fine," he said. "Let's just get this over with."

"I knew you'd see it my way," Eros replied, then he stood and he motioned for Alexios to do the same, so he did. Then Eros stepped around behind him, and there was a strange moment, a really strange moment, a _really_ strange moment, when Alexios felt what happened happen. One moment he was himself, in control of all his usual faculties, including those not usually available to mortal men, and the next he was completely paralysed from head to toe. He couldn't move. He couldn't turn his head or curl his fingers, wiggle his nose or even breathe and he felt himself panic for a second before he felt himself breathe in again. He felt his arms move. He felt his head tilt. He wasn't the one doing any of it.

"Don't worry, Alexios," Eros said, in Alexios' own familiar voice. "I'll have you home by dawn." Then he strode straight out of the front door like he'd always been in charge. Alexios knew he couldn't have stopped him if he'd tried. 

It took some getting used to but honestly, it seemed fine for a start. Eros just walked, looking at the houses and the municipal buildings and raising a hand in greeting to the few citizens and helots who were also out on the street after dark. He leaned against a tree trunk and he looked up at the stars for a while through the leaves overhead, running his fingertips against the bark until the sensation almost drove Alexios out of his mind. Then he ran, like a total lunatic, and he climbed the temple wall and stood there on the roof making the tiles clack under his sandals. He supposed Eros had been right; there weren't too many other men he knew could do that.

_So this is what you wanted to do with my body?_ Alexios thought. 

"Well, it doesn't feel the same when you're a god," Eros replied. "There's no sense of danger. There's no pain, so pleasure's harder. Imagine what that's like for a god of love." He sighed dramatically. "Imagine how much time that takes."

_I'm pretty sure you're talking about sex, not love_, Alexios thought. 

"Because you'd know so much about that," Eros said. He put Alexios' hands on his hips. "You know, maybe I should fix that."

He didn't get a chance to question that thought; Eros ran, and he jumped, and he launched himself - launched both of them - from the top of the Temple of Athena into the pond at the bottom of the hill. Alexios' heart raced, not that he was in charge of it, but seeing the jump like that was a whole different experience to usual. Thrilling, but not something he wanted to repeat.

They wandered, dripping, through the streets of Sparta. Alexios had never really paid much attention to how that had felt before but since he'd had no control over their descent, he seemed to feel it much more clearly. His skin felt cold in the summer evening air and his hair dripped pond water down over his shoulders, and his tunic clung to his skin so much that Eros kept having to pull it away to unstick it from his thighs. Eros squeezed some water from the tunic, then from his hair, then walked again, ambling down familiar paths. _Very_ familiar paths. Suddenly. Alexios knew exactly where they were going. 

_Eros..._ he thought, though his warning tone would've probably carried more weight in person instead of inside his head. Or maybe it wouldn't have, given he was aiming that warning at a literal god. 

"Trust me" Eros replied, and he smiled as if that would be somehow reassuring. It wasn't. Alexios didn't trust him at all. 

There was a lamp burning in Brasidas' kitchen, behind the closed door; when Eros used Alexios' hand to push the door open, there was Brasidas, sitting at the table in the lamplight, reading. Unsurprisingly, he was surprised, and he reached for the dagger at his elbow before dropping it onto the tabletop with a clatter when he saw who it was. 

"Don't you knock?" Brasidas said, though he seemed more pleased than annoyed. "I could have killed you!"

"No, you couldn't," Eros replied, and Brasidas chuckled. 

"I suppose you're right about that," he said. "You're still stronger and faster than anyone I've ever met. An Olympic champion, no less."

Eros smiled faintly. "Well, I'm a demigod," he said. "That stands to reason." 

"Oh, you are, are you?" Brasidas pushed his scrolls away and he turned to him, still sitting, with a smile of his own. "I think Myrrine and Nikolaos might have something to say about that."

"Nikolaos is not my father."

"So a god came down from Olympos, and as the seasons changed..."

"You don't believe me?"

"I'll admit it would explain a lot."

"I'm very strong."

"Yes, you are."

"I'm very fast. You said so yourself."

"I did say that."

"I have incredible stamina." 

Brasidas laughed warmly. "I bet you say that to all the women."

"What do you think I say to the men?"

Brasidas' smile faded slowly as he looked at him in the lamplight. He frowned slightly, like he wasn't sure what kind of game it was that Alexios was playing, and all Alexios could do was stand there, asking Eros what in Zeus' name he thought he was doing, because he didn't want to see Brasidas look at him like that. But Eros, of course, didn't reply. It wouldn't have made much sense to Brasidas if he had.

"Do you tell them how modest you are?" Brasidas joked, but he didn't sound much like his heart was in it. He sounded wary. He _looked_ wary.

"I tell them I saved their life."

"You do?"

"At Amphipolis."

"That's very specific." 

Eros stepped closer, up in front of Brasidas' chair, in between Brasidas' parted thighs. He tilted Brasidas' chin up with Alexios' first two fingers and then he trailed them down over his throat, following the fading scar of the wound Eros had healed that day. He did it slowly. He did it deliberately. Alexios felt the warmth of Brasidas' skin. Alexios felt Brasidas shiver.

"I asked the gods to heal you," Eros said. 

"And they listened?"

"Yes."

"So Apollo came down from the mountain to bring me back to life?"

"Not Apollo, no."

"Asklepios, then."

"No."

"So Zeus himself?"

"Eros."

Brasidas frowned. "_Eros_ saved my life?"

"Yes. Now he wants something for it in return." 

"And what might that be?"

"Sex."

Brasidas' wary look vanished and he laughed again. "You're kidding," he said. "If you--"

But Eros unbuckled Alexios' belt and Brasidas ceased that thought mid-sentence. Eros dropped Alexios' tunic to the ground at his feet. Brasidas eyes widened.

"He wants me to have sex with you," Eros said. "Or he might undo what he did to save your life."

"You're serious about this?"

"Yes, I am."

"Have you been hit over the head recently? That seems likely in your line of work."

"No."

"You're teasing me." 

"I'm not."

"Alexios, this isn't funny."

"It's not meant to be."

Brasidas stood. He tucked his hands behind his back, then changed his mind and put them on his hips, then changed his mind and crossed them over his chest, and eventually he just let them hang down at his sides. Alexios saw him clench and unclench his fists, and clench and unclench his jaw. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen him so unsettled. Angry, yes. Unsettled, no.

"Alexios," he said, and his tone sounded cautious, and warning, and Alexios wanted to stop, he'd have stopped before it had even began if he'd had a say, but Eros had him stand there, naked except for his sandals. Then he stepped closer to Brasidas and there were pins holding his tunic at his shoulder and Eros undid them, tossed the pins onto the table and let the tunic fall from his chest and fold over the belt at his waist. He untied the belt and the tunic dropped to the floor at Brasidas' feet. Brasidas let him. Maybe he was just too surprised to stop him. 

"Alexios..." he said again, and his voice sounded lower and thicker and slightly strained, like when he'd still been injured. But Eros didn't stop and Alexios watched, almost like he was doing it himself, as he ran Alexios' hands down over Brasidas' chest. He'd lost a lot of weight after Amphipolis, but he'd been putting the muscle back on steadily and Alexios regretted that he hadn't really helped with that. But Brasidas hadn't wanted his help on the training ground. He'd never found it in him to ask why; his _mater_ said perhaps he didn't want Alexios to see him fight until he could fight the way he had, and he hopes that's true, but he doesn't know.

Eros stepped closer. He slipped one hand up higher, around to the back of Brasidas' neck. Brasidas hesitated, then he rested his palms lightly at Alexios' bare hips. The pads of his fingers pressed lightly to his skin and Alexios could feel it, but he couldn't move. He could feel the way that touch sparked his arousal, and he couldn't stop it.

Brasidas looked like he meant to say something, maybe a complaint, or a protest, or another _you're kidding_, except he didn't get a chance to; Eros stepped in quickly and he pressed Alexios' mouth to his. And Brasidas resisted, just like Alexios had expected him to, but only for a moment before his hands were in Alexios' damp hair and when Eros kissed him harder, he responded in kind. More than that, his hands slid down to Alexios' backside and he pulled him in flush against him. Alexios was already half hard. What surprised him was so was Brasidas. 

It was Brasidas that caught their cocks in his hand and made both of them groan as their foreheads rested down together. It was Brasidas that eased him away just so he could fetch a jar of oil and set it meaningfully on the table. Eros seemed to take that as an invitation while Alexios was sure it wasn't - maybe he believed the god of love had saved his life and demanded this to pay the debt, or maybe he thought it was Alexios saying he wanted it, Alexios who might have saved his life or at least helped nurse him back to health, so he complied. Then he bent down over the table, and Alexios knew exactly what was next. He couldn't do anything about it at all. The worst part was he wasn't sure he wanted to. 

Everything that happened after that, Alexios saw and felt but couldn't control. He couldn't keep Eros from dipping two fingers into the oil and then rubbing those fingers between Brasidas' cheeks. He couldn't keep him from sliding his slick cock between them, rubbing the length of him over his hole until Alexios could barely think straight. And when he started to push inside him, slowly, carefully, Alexios could feel it, and he could see it, the way Brasidas' back arched and his muscles tensed before he relaxed and let him in. Alexios watched Brasidas take his cock right down to the root, bit by bit. He watched him stretch to accommodate his size and he saw Eros rub there with one thumb, right there at his oiled rim, where Alexios was in him. He'd wanted this for so long, but absolutely not like this. 

When Eros moved, it almost felt like Alexios was the one fucking him. If he didn't try to struggle or wrench back some semblance of control, it almost felt like the choices were his own. When he pulled out of him and then pushed back in again in one long stroke, that was something Alexios might have done. When he held Brasidas' hips and pumped his own so skin met skin, he might have done that, too. He might have wound Brasidas' braid around his palm and used it to make him arch his back and Brasidas groaned, and he braced on his hands against the table, as Eros began to stroke him with one hand. It almost felt like he was doing it, rubbing the head with the pad of his thumb, making him hiss in a breath through his teeth, except then it stopped. Alexios went still. Completely still. 

"Alexios?" Brasidas said, his voice breathless and tight. And Alexios took a breath. _He_ took a breath, not Eros. _He_ squeezed Brasidas' hips, not the god who'd been inside him. In a sickening rush, he realised he had his body back; Eros had left him, naked, with his cock pushed up balls-deep inside the best friend he could remember ever having. He was fucking appalled.

He should've stopped. It might not have been so bad if he'd stopped, and pulled out, and dressed, and walked away, but the fact is he didn't stop. He rubbed Brasidas' hipbones with his fingertips and when he moved, he meant to pull out, but what he did was rock his hips, and rocking his hips was basically the same as fucking him. So he did it - he fucked him, like he'd always wanted to. When he pulled out, it was only long enough to push him down on his back on the table with his ass basically hanging over the edge and Brasidas hooked one calf over Alexios' shoulder and wrapped the other one around his waist, the ties of his sandals digging in but Alexios didn't care. He had him face to face but still standing, gripping his hips as he fucked in hard, knocking the oil over all over the tabletop as it creaked and shifted against the floor. And he should've stopped, _he should've stopped_, but Brasidas' face was flushed and his cock was hard and his eyes were on him, watching him as he stroked himself. Brasidas was still watching him when he jerked and came all over his own hand and belly, as he pulled tighter around Alexios' cock inside him. He was still watching him when Alexios came, too. Somehow, he even looked like he wanted it.

He knew he should've left because it was bad enough for Eros to talk him into sex using his body and something else entirely to do this to him of his own free will. That was why he pulled out quickly, almost stumbling away from him. That was why he fumbled his damp tunic back on while Brasidas stood himself up and frowned at him. That was why, when Brasidas' hand found the back of his neck, when he frowned at him like he just didn't understand at all, like he might ask him for an explanation, Alexios just moved his mouth dumbly like that might help him find the words to tell him he was sorry. It didn't. 

He turned and he left, and he didn't go home until after dawn, when his clothes were dry. By then, it felt like it was too late to say sorry. It felt like it was too late for a lot of things. And Eros was nowhere to be found. 

He'd definitely paid a price. 

\---

It's been months now. And in the chilly autumn evening air, they make their way down the familiar path to Brasidas' house. Alexios rubs his bare arms like he's cold to keep himself from saying something stupid and he watches his breath fogging in the air. He's not cold. It just takes his mind off everything that's been in his head every time he's seen Brasidas since that night. 

"I want you to stop avoiding me," Brasidas says as they walk, calmly and evenly. He doesn't look at him, though. He looks straight ahead, even though he could probably find his way home blindfolded, considering how many times they've walked this way. Alexios thinks he could, too. Of course, there never used to be so much space between them; if his _mater_ had come with them instead of staying behind to try not to argue with Stentor, she could have fit between them easily.

"I--"

"Don't tell me you're not, Alexios. You are."

Alexios grimaces. "I am," he admits, and he stops, and that makes Brasidas stop, too. It makes Brasidas look at him in the mixed light of the moon and the lamps shining out of nearby houses. 

"I think I know what's wrong," Brasidas says. 

"You do?"

Brasidas smiles wryly. "A god came to see me last night," he says. "My life's been much more interesting since we met, you know."

"A god?"

"He told me everything. It was quite a story."

"He did?"

"He did." Then Brasidas' expression changes. It sobers. He shifts, changing his stance, like he's somehow not quite comfortable. Like he's stumbling into unfamiliarly territory. "What you did for me, Alexios..."

Alexios frowns. "What do you think I did?"

"Well, I was dead. I know I was dead. I felt the spear go in." He jabs the tips of his fingers like the point of a weapon against the scar at his throat. "Then I felt nothing." He steps closer. He settles his hands on Alexios' shoulders. "But then you asked the gods to bring me back. And they _listened_ to you."

"You mean the god of healing at a snail's pace listened to me."

Brasidas leans his head back, stretching out his throat so Alexios can see the scar that's only partly covered by his regrown beard. "But I still healed," he says, then he drops his chin back down. He squeezes Alexios' shoulders, thumbs against his collarbones. "He told me you didn't agree the price in advance."

"You were dead. I didn't have time for negotiations."

"But he didn't tell you what he wanted." 

"No."

"What would you have done to bring me back?"

Alexios smiles bitterly and he glances away over Brasidas' shoulder. He knows the answer to that question already because actually, he's thought about it more often than he really should have. He's thought about being sent off on convoluted quests across the world, living in exile in a cave or on a tiny island for the rest of all eternity, going back to his hovel on Kephallonia and never seeing anyone he loves again. He's thought about being asked to kill, but he does that for drachmae on any given normal day. He's thought about being asked to die - he'd give up his own life in a second, in any way he can imagine, if it meant Brasidas living. He's thought about it, and he's come to one almost inevitable conclusion. 

"Anything," he says, though saying it feels like wrenching out his fucking guts. "I would have done anything." 

"He said that's why he did it."

"I don't understand." 

Brasidas moves closer still, till Alexios can feel the warmth of him in the chilly air. He cups Alexios' jaw in both his hands, thumbs brushing his cheekbones. He's very warm. Warm is good; warm means alive.

"He's the god of love, Alexios," Brasidas says. "He knows everything that we've both wanted, right back to the day we met."

Alexios frowns again, or maybe he was always frowning. "Both?" he asks.

"Both." Brasidas rests his forehead against his. He closes his eyes and after a moment, Alexios follows suit. "And he wants you to know he's disappointed that we didn't work this out ourselves. He says he expected more from a demigod. Though possibly not from me."

Alexios chuckles darkly because honestly, that sounds like Eros. He flexes his hands for a second, unsure, then he brings them to Brasidas' hips. He's not sure if he should trust this - he almost wonders if it's Eros wearing Brasidas like a set of shiny Spartan armour, but Brasidas is a man, a normal man, so that can't be the truth of it. It's really him, the Spartan man he always thought he couldn't have, who he always thought that anywhere else in the Greek world would be his lover, but Spartans have their own damn rules. He knows Brasidas sticks to the important ones; he should have known he wouldn't find this one important.

"Can I take it you don't mind what happened?" Alexios asks. "Bearing in mind it wasn't me for part of it." 

When Brasidas kisses him, quickly, making Alexios blush with how much and how immediately that pleases him, and when he pulls back to look at him, he's smiling. "It was you for the important part," he says. He sounds amused. Alexios knows he's being teased. That's a good sign, he thinks. 

"You didn't know it wasn't me?"

"Well, I thought your seduction technique could have used some refinement, but..." He pushes Alexios' hair back behind his shoulders. "No, I didn't know it wasn't you. You were acting strangely, but I didn't imagine a god was inside you. At least no more than usual." He claps him on the arms. "I thought you had a change of heart. Perhaps I disappointed you. Imagine how pleased I was to find that I was wrong." 

Alexios doesn't have to imagine. At least if he does, he imagines it was how he feels right now. 

When they part and carry on toward Brasidas' house, they're so close that the backs of their hands brush together with almost every other step. He doesn't feel the need to talk; it's a comfortable silence, like it always was before, but with a kind of warmth to it despite the chill that's in the air. And then there's the house, and they pause at the door. 

"Come inside," Brasidas says. "I've recovered but I think my oil-stained kitchen table might want its chance at revenge." 

He goes inside. There's no question about that, and Alexios thinks he'll be staying the night, or at least part of it. He'll put his hands on him himself this time, now he knows Brasidas wants that, too. 

Somewhere out there, he's sure Eros is laughing. And somehow, he's just as sure they haven't seen the last of him.


End file.
